Vivian Balakrishnan now on top

Vivian Balakrishnan on the ball about the haze situation. Good for him, good for us. He also succeeded at arresting the spread of dengue from getting worse, a very difficult campaign. Thumbs up!

This year NDR: The PM tried his best

Every media person was in a hurry. Yahoo posted a pic of the PM upside down but at least they were quick to fix that.

This government finally nearly caved in to every request of the opposition over the years. That's shrewd. The PAP will win big by listening. The worry is we were told over the years we can't afford them, so the question is how will they be paid. The PM admitted as much that the cost will grow over time and Medisave is going up soon. We have seen how it grew in other countries. To me this NDR is more significant for what was unsaid than said. That's is the simplest way to look good. Not much talk about public transport.

The coming change in the PSLE should alleviate academic stress to the very young. It is cruel to make them compete so hard. Time for the tuition industry to make their calculations. Henceforth the business might grow more slowly.

The PM tried his best. I have to be mindful we cannot have the PM we wished for but the one we have. One can wish he would explain with penetrating insight the world today and tomorrow which Singapore must navigate safely but that is not his forte. Life would be much harder for all of us because the future is not clear until it is very near. We will often be scrambling. That is the practical meaning of adaptability, resilience and energy. He and some of his colleagues are good people but we need to be mindful they are not family or friends but politicians.

Update: 5:55am

The Independent Top Story.

Their story has many things I omitted in my earlier post. I hope unlike the ST they will keep it available indefinitely. Of course we can go to PMO site for the full speech but that's too much to read.

I am looking forward to Breakfast Network stories. It is smarter to be slower but better.













Update: 8:50am

I think Bertha Henson's presentation of the PM's speech is a lot better than the old style format of The Independent. I do not even bother with the ST. I feel that I have heard it from the horse's mouth last night; why bother?

BN has many of the topics I had cryptically put across as what was left unsaid. Had I read Bertha's article first, I wouldn't even have the 5:55am update.

I didn't say this earlier, but the government is losing its hands at the steering wheel. The people's taking over but we have not yet learned how to organize ourselves to do that well like the Swiss have. Actually I don't even know if the Swiss  model is practical for us given that our neighborhood is more unstable and uncertain. Some of the right decisions would be painful ones. It is rare to see people voting for pain. Granted if we have no leaders of legendary foresight, we have no choice. Also Switzerland was a long time in the making.

When WP grows up, time to worry

Link to CNet article.

Even thought it's a little early this is a good time to own up to this because I remember a post yesterday and do not want to contradict that. On and off I appear to contradict myself mostly because I didn't want to put in the effort to make myself clearer. Sometimes it is because they are work in progress in my mind.

As and when the WP is strong enough to challenge the PAP, we will see that the relationship between the two parties would be no different from that between tech giants. For those who can still remember the words of LKY at Aljunied in 2011, those would be prophetic words. Google lied low when they were much smaller than Microsoft. WP is doing exactly that. Consumers benefited both ways. The happy situation would end when the two biggies fight each other. We will be forced into the same situation some day as long as the WP did not by carelessness or bad luck sink itself.

You can't blame the PAP for wanting to fix the WP can you? Deep trust is built between individuals and may be very rarely between families but you can't scale beyond. I have known this as a hard truth for a long time but like many we are also tempted to give fairy tales a chance to become true. I think I want to put an end to this one.

I want the WP to help make the PAP better. I do not want them to be able to successfully mount a challenge against the PAP for a very long time, at least until we are be more politically mature and resilient. The Swiss model of governance is attractive but I am not sure if it can be achieved here as we drank from very different wells, we must be very different creatures.

NATAS this morning

Went to NATAS with wifey this morning. Got there early and delighted to find plenty of parking space at the Sing Expo. Collected way to many brochures as it was often easier to accept than turn them down! We spent most of our time at the JNTO booth. I guess that would be our next destination. We are giving America a break.

2013 President's Scholars

I am quite pleased with how the PSC selected the President's Scholars for this year. One grow up in PNG, another had 233 for his PSLE. Many parents are surprised, may be shocked but I am very happy. There should not be a beaten path to this hallowed place but the journey there must be marked by the values we admire. I want to see 'jihad'.

I am not so persuaded about giving this scholarships to student leaders, especially the president of student councils. If my memory serves me well many recent President's Scholars were from that path. This is going to become the new beaten path?

Google: Gmail isn't private. So?

I am not surprised by this at all. I am also not surprised that others are surprised. By and large people don't understand there is no free lunch. If you don't know who paid for lunch, you are. Of course private blogs aren't truly private too.

Yes, some things are free but mostly they come from individuals and small businesses. Big businesses are structurally not equipped and unable to give away anything free. If money isn't involved, the payment is in information or hopefully just brand.

And when you scale it to the largest possible size i.e., the state, we all eventually learn that nation states have no values, only interests. The values of a society must often work through its NGOs, religious and civil societies.

It is perplexing to watch America trying to profess values as a state and regularly failing, but it might be their secret sauce for being a magnet to immigrants. That place give you the best chance in a rotten class for fairy tales becoming true. Horatio Alger tales live in many hearts.

We in Singapore are inexperienced and for while this is no bad thing. Elsewhere large companies and government are often treated with suspicion. I sense that we are starting to go down this path too and we would be poorer by becoming like elsewhere. But how can we respond differently when our large companies and government also drifted to become like the disliked best in class everywhere? We are losing our specialness.

A Fork: Story of Love, Paths & Fate

Came in the mail this morning. I wouldn't have known about this since I don't go hunting for YouTube clips. In Hebrew it is "המזלג - סיפור אהבה מרגש בנתיבי הגורל" You gotta read it from right to left.


Many versions of this story must have been written by God for his children. Especially for the Jews, they have many 'Joseph Stories', and there are even bigger stories in the works.